


Enhancements

by goldarrow



Series: Mirror!verse [4]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 11:24:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldarrow/pseuds/goldarrow
Summary: They set a trap for Helen.





	Enhancements

**Author's Note:**

> Lyle belongs to fredbassett, who kindly lends him out.
> 
> Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures, not me. Unfortunately. Sigh. I mean no harm, I make no profit except satisfaction.

It was late. They were tired. But when an alarm suddenly rang out at the ARC, the rhythmic - not to mention extremely loud - howling brought both Stephen and Cutter to their feet, staring at each other in shock. It wasn’t the ADD, it wasn’t the fire alarm, it was a pattern Stephen had never heard before. Cutter was just as lost, if the expression on his face was anything to go by.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Stephen yelled over the noise, wincing and plugging his ears with his fingers as his enhanced hearing proved to be more of a liability than an asset in this case.

"I don’t know," Cutter shouted back. "But I intend to find out!"

The two men ran into the corridor where they came face to face with an armed and angry Captain Ryan, Lieutenant Lyle on his flank.

Ryan gestured for them to return to the office. Once all four men were back inside, he closed and locked the door, Lyle taking up a post beside it. The thickness of the door abated the sound enough that Stephen was no longer feeling as if his head was about to emulate a roman candle, so he removed his fingers from his ears and contented himself with a glare at the soldiers. He didn’t get a chance to even start berating them, though. Cutter beat him to it.

"Right, Captain, what the devil is that appalling noise?"

Stephen changed his mind. Cutter hadn't beaten him to it on the berating front, he was being way too polite. The professor was capable of much better invective than that, as recalcitrant students had been wont to find out when they'd lazily skipped over any really in-depth research on their term papers.

It turned out that invective wasn’t required. 

"Helen Cutter just escaped from the cells," Ryan ground out. "She practically gelded the guard who took dinner to her, gave him at the minimum a concussion on top of it, and scarpered. We almost caught her when she got to the ground floor, but then she fucking disappeared."

He glanced over at Lyle, who was leaning his shoulder against the door with his hand up to his ear, cradling his comms earpiece. 

The lieutenant shook his head when he caught Ryan's look. "Not a sign of her," he snapped. "Professor, any idea where she'll head?"

Cutter stared at him, mouth agape. "I've barely seen the woman in nine years, Lieutenant. What makes you think I have the foggiest idea?"

Lyle grinned and shrugged. "Worth a try. I was hoping that surprise might shake some memory loose."

Stephen shared an exasperated but accepting look with Cutter, then asked, "Is the alarm still necessary?" He winced again as Lyle cracked the door open to peer out. "My eardrums are about to implode."

"Hang on," Ryan ordered, and Stephen heard him ask for an update, after the receipt of which Ryan's lips tightened and Lyle muttered something that Stephen wasn't sure he even wanted to know.

Within five seconds, though, the alarm faded out into a whine and then blessed silence. Stephen almost collapsed into his chair, doing his best not to whimper in relief.

"She's gone," Ryan reported with an uncharacteristic sigh. "They found a couple of tracks outside the back exit, and the downed guard's car is gone. According to Ditzy, the guard might have a fractured skull. They're waiting for the ambulance now."

"Damn it," Stephen sighed. "We had her for what, two whole days?" 

The mobile in his pocket buzzed, and he jumped. "Shit." Pulling the offending device out, he swiped the screen. "Hart."

"Stephen, good, glad I caught you." Lorraine's voice came tinnily through the speaker. "Sir James and I are on our way back to the ARC. We're in a bad reception area and our phones keep cutting out. I've been trying everyone's numbers. We need you and Professor Cutter for a meeting in the large conference room in fifteen minutes. Also Captain Ryan and Lieutenant Lyle. Do you know where they are?"

Stephen nodded automatically, then fought back an inappropriate chuckle at doing so when he was on the phone. Of course Lorraine wouldn’t be able to see it. "We're all here. I'll let them know."

"Thanks, Stephen," she replied briskly, and before he could say, "You're welcome," the line went dead with a crackle.

"Meeting, large conference room, fift - no, fourteen minutes from now," Stephen reported.

Lyle sighed, Ryan remained stoic, and Cutter cursed.

"What good will that do?" Cutter demanded, and Stephen added his sigh to Lyle's.

"I don't know, Nick," he grumbled, rubbing his burning eyes. "But right now, I just want to get it over with and go home."

But then a stray thought hit him and he grabbed Ryan's arm. "Captain, is there any way she could have got hold of our home security system information?"

Ryan's eyes narrowed. "I don’t think so, but we'll change the codes anyway."

Ryan led the way out of the room, already ordering a team to go to Cutter's house with an update to their security system, and Stephen and Cutter fell in behind him with Lyle automatically bringing up the rear.

xXx

"Stephen, the last time you went up against her she shot you in the head." 

Stephen saw the worry in his lover's eyes, but still had to fight back a growl. "I wasn’t ready last time. This time I will be." He ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up as much as Cutter's was. "I can't go through it all again, Nick. I can't. Just the thought of having to keep looking over my shoulder all the time, wondering when she's going to come after me, with no end in sight - it horrifies me." 

He looked around at the others. "We have to find her. And we know the only way to do it is with bait. Bait that will be so mouth-watering she won't be able to resist making a try for it. And the only bait that good is me." He shivered. "She said I was a disappointment, but I think she was just playing me. There was something about the way she reacted when I woke up. Something just a little bit 'off'. I think she'll try to get hold of me again."

Lester made a sound that Stephen could only interpret as "Humph." Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, a sigh so perfect in length and execution that Stephen almost applauded. 

"It will be necessary for any trap to be exceptionally subtle," Lester stated, once he had dropped his hand again. "Helen Cutter won't walk into a snare that is in any way obvious. As irritating as I find the woman to be, I'm also aware that she is also extremely intelligent." He stood and straightened his jacket. "Make a plan. If I don't consider it to be subtle enough, I will insist you make another. So don't waste either your time or mine with anything foolish." With a final nod to everyone in the room, he turned and marched out.

"Well, fuck me," Lyle remarked admiringly, and Cutter's subsequent twitch almost managed to make Stephen chuckle.

"Any ideas?" Stephen asked the assembled company, and the silence in return was almost deafening in its entirety.

"Helen somehow knows when anomalies open," Cutter said quietly, reaching out to touch Stephen's hand.

Stephen smiled. This was hard enough for him but possibly even harder for Cutter, who was not only seeing his current lover put in possibly extreme danger, but was also participating in setting a trap for his ex-wife, a woman he used to love.

Ryan nodded, eyes narrowing. "Yes. So if we set something at an anomaly site, she shouldn’t be expecting us to be on guard against her."

Lyle chimed in, making notes on the pad in front of him. "She'll be thinking we're focussing on the anomaly. Not on watching our backs, since the danger isn't usually on this side. Not bad, not bad at all."

Jenny frowned. "We'll have to be careful about what anomaly we work with. One that's in too built-up an area will have too many potential witnesses for her, and one that's in too rural an area won't have enough cover."

"And too rural won't allow her to get away quickly with a prisoner, either," Lyle added.

Ryan stroked his chin. "She'll be looking for something in a town or city. Something in an area that's either run-down and deserted, or just in the process of being built up."

"Construction sites, or abandoned warehouses of some kind, then," Stephen clarified.

"And if we get a call for a site like that, then what?" Cutter asked, still looking too worried for Stephen's peace of mind.

"Then I make sure I take Abby's power-ade," Stephen replied seriously. "The nourishment in it will give me the energy to access my enhancements for long enough. I can take her down and take her out."

Cutter's mouth opened, and Stephen reached out to take his hand. "I was already tired the last time I saw her, Nick. I only had about 30 seconds of speed, and I still managed to tie her up. Think what I can do if I have two minutes."

"That's the other thing that bothers me," Cutter objected. "Last time, she accosted you in a bookstore!"

Lyle snorted. "Yeah, just as they were closing for the night, and right before an anomaly opened. Besides, Professor, we're going to make sure she doesn’t have any other chances to get to him."

Stephen sighed. He'd been hoping they wouldn’t pick up on that. Bugger. That meant he wasn’t going to be alone at all until they took Helen down. 

xXx

After two solid weeks of breakfast meetings, lunch dates and dinners out with the team, Stephen was starting to feel faintly over-socialized. No anomalies had opened matching their requirements, but he'd made sure to take advantage of Abby's energising drink at each one anyway, just in case. As a result of that, he was also becoming moderately concerned for his waistline, the calorie count in her mix not exactly being low. 

On the other hand, the one advantage to the forced togetherness had been that his morning run had included a Special Forces soldier, which was starting to increase his fitness level immensely. He'd been getting lazy, allowing his 'enhancements' to take precedence over general fitness. It had taken ten days of mild jeering before he'd regained enough stamina to keep up without difficulty, and the next four days saw him actually beat Fiver's time once. Finn, though, still managed to beat him.

Finally, they got a call for an anomaly at the perfect site for a trap. The buildings at the housing estate had been started when the property boom was at its height, but the owners had pushed themselves too far and had gone bust right in the middle of construction. 

The abandoned, half-built bungalows were not much more than wooden skeletons with skins of now-cracking plastic sheeting and the occasional panel of plasterboard stretched over them. Some were collapsing under the weight of waterlogged plaster, some had been roofed in before the crash and were in slightly better condition. At least enough that there were signs of temporary occupancy in a few.

Stephen hoped that the people who were camping out in them had taken the better part of valour and scarpered when the anomaly opened. It was behind the last bungalow in the line, pale and flickering slightly, already looking a bit anaemic. Stephen, followed closely by Cutter, made a quick circuit around the anomaly and shook his head. 

"Looks good, no tracks," he reported, turning in a circle and eyeing the hills behind the bungalow closely as his gaze passed over them. Nodding at Cutter to remain beside the anomaly, he headed for their Hilux, dug a local ordnance survey map from the case at the back and spread it out on the truck's bonnet.

"Anything?" Ryan's voice behind him would have made Stephen jump like a bee-stung horse if he hadn’t had enhanced hearing. The Special Forces soldier's ability to move almost silently in spite of being wrapped around with weapons and ammunition would never cease to awe him.

Shaking his head, Stephen leaned over the map. "Not a sound, not a movement," he said quietly. "But I can feel her. She's here." He folded the map up and set it aside. "She's waiting, Ryan. She needs fewer witnesses."

"Phase two, then," the soldier said. "Be ready." He turned away with his hand to his earpiece as if receiving a message, then trotted over to the group beside the anomaly. "Right, lads, we might have another one. This one here looks to be weakening, so I'm going to leave Baker - and Hart, if you don't mind, Stephen - to keep an eye on it until it closes."

Stephen nodded. "Not a problem, Captain." He held out his hand for the tranq rifle that Abby was holding out. "I'll make one last circuit to be sure nothing came through. There were a few odd markings on the path I'd like to double-check." He eyed the anomaly, which was starting to look pale. "Connor, do you have your recorder?"

"Yeah, sure, you want to keep taking readings for me?"

"It might help." Stephen took the recorder with a grin and a wink.

Abby handed him a thermos. "You forgot your lunch again," she stated. "Here. I had an extra protein shake."

Stephen fought back a laugh as he gulped it down. She certainly had improved the taste of her energising drinks since the first time he'd choked on one.

"Thanks, Abby. See you in a while," Stephen stated as the others headed for their vehicles. 

He traded a glance with the soldier left behind and started back toward the path behind their bungalow as the Special Forces vehicles pulled away. Now was the moment of truth. His enhanced senses were going to make the difference between success and failure, between freedom and captivity. He was also going to need every bit of speed and strength he possessed to win this one. Helen wouldn’t have come alone, and she sure as hell wouldn’t be taken easily.

Ears cocked and attention mostly on what was happening around and behind him rather than the path in front of him, Stephen moved slowly along, bending occasionally as if checking for signs of creature passage in the dirt. With his hearing extended to its maximum range, he could pick out the sounds of Baker's equipment rattling and his footsteps thudding on the tarmac of the drive, the chirps and twitters of the local bird life, the sound of rodents crawling through the grass, even the faint rasping of insects as they burrowed into the bark of the trees.

He was beginning to think Helen had cottoned onto their trap when there was a thud from where Baker should be and a sudden silence of all the small creatures to his left, just a bit behind him. The soldier had been ordered to allow himself to be taken out, and Stephen barely had time to hope that Helen or her minion hadn't damaged the man too badly before he felt the rush of a body towards him.

He spun, leg scything out at the perfect second to swipe the feet from under his attacker. The man hit the ground hard enough to force a grunt from him. Stephen followed up immediately with a smack to the man's head with the butt of his tranq rifle. That was one. There was at least one more, since this one wouldn't have had time to get from Baker's position to Stephen's. He pulled the man onto the path and moved far enough away that the sound of stertorous breathing wouldn’t interfere.

Crouching beside a bush, Stephen concentrated on his hearing again, waiting for the slightest sound to tell him where the rest of the attackers were. He wasn't sure whether to hope that Helen would come after him first so he could take her out, or whether to hope that Helen's minion would be first so he wouldn't have anyone else to worry about whilst going after her. On the other hand, if Helen lost all of her troops she would most likely simply disappear and they'd be right back where they started. Damn it. 

He saved his strength, not accessing more than his enhanced hearing as he waited. There was a soft cracking noise behind him as someone stepped on a twig, crushing it beneath a heavy boot. The sound was faint, but it was enough for him to place the location and the general weight of the person treading there. The thud wasn't heavy enough to be the footfall of one of Helen's clones, so it had to be Helen herself. 

Stephen waited, pretending to be hiding and watching down the path as he tracked Helen's movement toward him. She was being careful, the ultimate predator, but not quite careful enough. Like Victor Frankenstein, she was about to discover that her control over her creation was nonexistent.

The softest swish of blades of grass rubbing together came from behind him, and Stephen came out of his crouch in a spiralling spin, hands up and out, ready to block any form of attack Helen might be trying. He caught the glitter of metal and plastic between her fingers and lashed out as quickly as he could to smack the syringe from her fingers, calling for backup as he did. 

She cursed and lunged for the syringe as it spun glinting into the grass. Not waiting, Stephen followed through on his strike, grabbing her arm and adding a considerable amount of impetus to her movement with a sharp shove between her shoulder blades, enough that she gasped and grunted as she tore out of his grip, took two flailing paces sideways and went flat onto the ground, ending up sprawled out in the dirt of the path far from the landing place of whatever it was she'd been going to use on him.

Stephen followed her down, landing across her back to pull her hands up behind her in a capture hold. The entire sequence had taken less than two seconds. Stephen tied her hands with a cable tie, then rolled her over and met her glaring eyes calmly.

"It's over, Helen," Stephen said quietly. "You might have made me, but you made me much more than you'd planned. Give it up. Come with me, help us against the anomalies, and we might give you your freedom some day."

She relaxed under him and smiled smoothly, wriggling as if searching for a slightly more comfortable position, but managing to expose more cleavage in the process. Stephen stifled a sigh, wondering fleetingly if she would ever change, if she would ever learn that her default setting of sexual challenge wouldn't always be effective.

"I'd much rather you came with me, Stephen," she almost crooned, eyes gleaming as they fixed on his. "We could have everything together. The entire span of time would be ours, just for the two of us, living and learning side by side. Come with me, instead. I can make it worth your while."

This time, Stephen had to suppress a shudder. He knew she didn't mean any of it. Her past behaviour, her meddling with his DNA, her treatment of him whenever she got her hands on him all gave her the lie. 

"Forget it, Helen," he grated out. "You lost any chance you had with me when you fucked with my DNA." Hearing the slam of car doors as the ARC team returned, he turned his head and called out, "Over here!"

The team came up to him, Baker manhandling the one Stephen had knocked out earlier into the back of the Special Forces vehicle in a manner that hopefully made his no-doubt sore head feel a little better.

The crack of a rifle-shot broke into his hearing, and Stephen automatically ducked away from Helen and rolled to a crouch, coming up facing the direction of the sound. He frantically searched for the shooter, wishing for once that Helen had enhanced his sight as much as she had his hearing. 

He glanced over at the Special Forces vehicles, noting that all the soldiers had taken cover and were facing the same direction, their eyes intent on the hills. Time had seemed to slow down, as it always did when he accessed his enhanced speed. Catching the slightest hint of movement behind the crest of the hill, he stood, preparing to head for it in an attempt to take down whoever it was. Knowing that he would receive a bollocking from Ryan wasn't enough to stop him. Unlike the soldiers, he couldn't die, at least not permanently, and he'd rather take the chance himself, even if it infuriated them. They might have signed on knowing they could be putting themselves in danger every day in the line of duty, but he had the edge on them in both speed and regenerative ability.

The crack of another shot made everyone duck down a little farther, eyes intent on the movement that was still taking place on the crest of the hill. Stephen crouched again along with them, but his enhanced hearing let him know that the shot had come from further left than where they were looking. He watched carefully and made out the shooter nestled behind a bush.

"Captain," he said softly, knowing that neither the shooter nor the person working to hold their attention could hear him from this distance but unable to force himself to speak loudly in spite of it. "The shooter is behind the bush, 20 metres to the left of the movement. That other one's a stalking horse."

Ryan's head came around, and he stared in the direction Stephen was indicating. After a moment, he nodded. "Got it. Finn, he's behind the gorse. You're in a good position. Find the target, take the shot."

Less than two seconds later, the close report of Finn's return shot broke the silence that had fallen. There was a bitten-off cry from the bush, and a body slid to the ground, rifle clattering down the hill in front of it.

"Eyes on," Ryan ordered. Everyone kept scanning the hill, but the movement that had been keeping their attention had ceased, no sign left of the original person.

"Looks clear," Lyle reported. "Team to check?"

"Go," Ryan agreed.

Stephen took a few measured deep breaths to calm and shut down the enhancements, time slowing again to its normal rate. He turned to make sure Helen hadn't escaped during the skirmish, then stopped in complete and utter shock. She was lying on the grass beside the path, arms still bound behind her, limbs relaxed and eyes open, staring emptily at the sky. The pool of blood around her body was large enough to tell Stephen that she was gone. The second shot, the one that had enabled him to lock down the shooter's position, had been aimed at Helen, not at them. He'd heard the thud of it hitting, but hadn't even thought that Helen would be the target.

"What the fuck?" Lyle's voice came over the headsets before Stephen had the chance to mention Helen's current condition.

"Report," Ryan ordered as he turned toward Stephen, eyes widening and mouth opening in momentary shock as he caught sight of Helen's body before his mouth snapped shut and his eyes narrowed.

"The fucker Finn got isn't the only dead body up here. The first one we saw is here, too, and he's been stabbed," Lyle reported, sounding both stunned and suspicious. "We're expanding the search."

"Acknowledged. Keep your heads down." Ryan stood and moved over to Stephen. "Cutter, we need you here," Ryan added after a close look at the wound in Helen's chest.

"What?" Cutter stayed low as he walked over to them, before stopping in utter shock when Stephen moved to the side so he could see. "I don't… Why would they… Damn it, what the bloody hell is going on?"

Stephen shook his head, thoughts swirling in kaleidoscopic patterns through his mind. "I don’t know, Nick, and I don’t like it."

"This doesn’t make any sense." Nick sounded totally lost. "Why would they kill her? She was their leader." He squatted down beside Stephen, reached out and gently closed Helen's eyes before placing his hand on Stephen's shoulder.

"She made me," Stephen whispered. "She might have caused my death, she might have been playing games with us all along, but if she hadn't made me, we wouldn't…"

"Yes." Nick slid his hand from Stephen's shoulder to wrap his arms around him.

The feeling was comforting, and Stephen sighed as he leaned back into his lover's side. "So, it's over, then."

Ryan, who had moved a little bit away to give them some semblance of privacy, shook his head, his voice hard as he spoke. "No. It's not."

Stephen looked at him in surprise, then followed the direction of the captain's gaze. All of the air seemed to lock into his lungs, paralysing him completely as his legs gave way and his crouch turned into sitting hard onto the grass with Nick pulled down beside him. 

Helen.

Helen, standing at the edge of the housing estate. Alive. Smiling in a manner that Stephen believed was extremely predatory. She blew him a kiss and faded into the trees.

Fuck.

All they'd managed to do was show her exactly what she'd wanted to know. Exactly what Stephen was capable of under the right conditions. 

Stephen turned to look at Nick, who was staring back at him with an expression of complete devastation.

"What will she ever stop at?" Nick asked quietly. "I'm so sorry, Stephen."

Shrugging, Stephen stood and reached down to clasp Nick's hand. Pulling him to his feet, Stephen replied, "She'll stop at nothing, Nick." He gazed down at the body in front of them. "Well, at least we can be pretty sure she'll leave us alone for a while. She got what she wanted."

"Are you sure?" Ryan's voice made Cutter jump, but Stephen had been expecting it. The captain didn’t take his protective role lightly.

"Yes, I am," Stephen replied firmly, meeting Ryan's eyes steadily. "Last time, she found out what I could do when conditions are bad, this time, what I can do when they're good. She won't need any more information, at least for a while. She'll want to work out what advantage it will give her."

"Right, sir." Ryan nodded, then turned away. "Pack up, lads, the anomaly's closed, and the show's over for now." His voice softened a little as he turned to Jenny, who had walked up to them, for once wearing a sensible pair of shoes, though she still had on her most killer suit. "Ms Lewis, I understand you've made arrangements for the removal of the 'terrorists'?"

Jenny's smile was slightly less predatory but no less dangerous than Helen's had been. "I have, Captain. If you or Lieutenant Lyle wouldn’t mind remaining until the bodies are taken to the Home Office mortuary, I'd appreciate it."

Ryan waved and Lyle trotted over. "Jon, you and Finn stay with Ms Lewis until the rubbish is cleared. We'll meet you back at the ARC."

"Will do." Lyle headed over to the SF team, already talking as he moved.

Stephen wrapped his arm around a still-shocked Cutter's shoulder and walked back to their Hilux, Ryan flanking them, obviously still in protection-mode.

They drove away from the area, leaving the body of Helen Cutter's clone lying under a tarpaulin.

Fin.


End file.
